Law like other older professions like medicine and architecture rarely rely on advertising to market itself. Instead, traditional forms of marketing have always been at the forefront in helping lawyers seek new clients and though it has worked in the past, trends indicate that traditional advertising no longer works in a digital age. Though newspapers, magazines and even flyers are still around, they have been far outpaced by websites, social media and other digital advertising platforms that offer a wider, unrestricted access to new markets and clients.
The primary restrictions in traditional advertising are mostly geographical, but other restrictions such as language barrier, cost and accessibility also prevents traditional media from achieving the same effectiveness as digital media. With digital advertising, the website and social media sites automatically translate the language to the reader’s preferred language and it is not affected by geography so long as there is internet. Therefore, lawyers can build on their marketing strategies if they can identify a particular target market by using digital advertising platforms.
How Criminal Defense Advertising can Lead to Customer Acquisition
Criminal defense attorney advertising largely focuses on customer acquisition rather than customer retention. Therefore the marketing strategies will differ from other businesses in that whereas other businesses have to keep changing content and their products to appease their longstanding clients, law firms simply have to advertise their skills, competencies and capacity to deliver. This means that law firms have to maintain the same content in some areas, and change slightly other content to keep their websites looking fresh and informative.
How to Deal with Customer Feedback
Another advantage of digital marketing for criminal defense attorneys is the fact that it offers attorneys the capacity to immediately respond to customer feedback. Queries on blogs and social media sites are seen quickly and the admin can quickly answer. Some questions such as court dates, change in laws or even approach strategies can be easily dispensed with through social media sites and not letters. In the past, such queries took time to respond and in dire cases, parties would feel neglected and ignored. However, with digital marketing, an attorney can quickly gain reputation as responsive simply by answering queries and providing feedback on crucial questions.
Using Testimonials to Build Your Brand
Testimonials are a great way to get new clients, but this is a tricky minefield which you need to moderate to ensure you don’t breach your client’s privacy or even offer a platform where such can happen. As the administrator, ensure anything that is posted does not breach ethical standards and no client is named directly as this could pose a danger to yourself or your clients. Criminal practice is sensitive and therefore, you should exercise the highest level of discretion when advertising or posting testimonials.
In essence, criminal defense advertising may be a bit technical but it largely follows the same advertising rules and regulations as other services. Ensure you keep your content clean, truthful and concise as this will reflect on you as a professional.